A few weekends ago, I went to a continuing education course to work on my chiropractic technique. While there is always room for technical improvement, I tend to learn more about myself and my behaviours than about technique.

Here are some life skills I picked up.

When your body, emotions and mind are in a negative state or a less than desired state, you are more easily influenced by others around you. While in a more positive state, you can help influence those around you. Next time you are upset, pay attention to what influences you ex) other’s driving, people getting on your nerves, etc vs when you are in a good mood, you let things go easier and you can even put a smile on someone else's face. When you choose a certain state for your body and you can then influence others in your area, you are conditioning the space around you.

Appreciate the small and the large perspectives on life. The smaller perspectives would be what is going on right now in your life. If you have pain somewhere in your body or whether you are currently experiencing certain emotions or situations. To get to a larger perspective, expand your timeline. Will this current situation be important to me 5 years from now? 10 years from now? Adjust your current response accordingly. For the most part, if you are in an argument, it won’t matter 5 years from now what you are arguing over. If that’s the case, choose love over being “right” in this moment.

Remember that there is a season for everything. What happens when you try to plant a seed in the ground in winter? or if you drive your snow tires in the summer? There is a timing to life and the right actions are needed at the right time for change to occur.

Play and experiment with life. What if you decided to try a new route today to work? How about cooking a new meal or doing something you would not do?

Be gentle on yourself. We are usually are hardest critic. There are things you say to yourself that you would not say to someone else. Tell yourself how awesome you are and if you can’t do that, ask me and we’ll work on that together.

Life lessons are all around us if we simply open our eyes. Get yourself out of the same old boring routines and spice up your life a little.

Your body is constantly talking to you. It’s calling to you through the language of tension, pain, emotions and thoughts. We all have the capacity to listen and figure out what our body is saying, but do we do it?

When life stress occurs, there are several ways that people respond. Some people don’t have any awareness that their body is in a state of stress. Some people are aware of their stress and choose to ignore it. Others, are able to feel the stress and hear their body’s message and respond. If you respond and receive the messages, your warning signals will go away. Ignore it and it keeps trying to talk to you until you have no choice but to listen.

Imagine that you are a postman and you have an important letter that you have to deliver. You go to the house and knock on the door to deliver you letter and no one is home so you decide to come back the next day. On the next day, you notice a car in the driveway and so you knock on the front door and also on the back door because you have an important letter to deliver. No one is home so you come back the next day. Walking up to the driveway you notice movement from behind a curtain so you know that someone is home. You start knocking and knocking, louder and louder until finally, someone opens the door and you hand them the letter and leave. Pain is like this. It has a message to deliver to you and it keeps knocking at you until you answer it’s call. Once you figure out what it needs, it will go away.

Your pain is knocking at you, do you know what the message is? If not, come to one of our monthly beginner workshops to find out more.

Firstly, a Happy Chinese New Year to those who celebrate. Wishing everyone good health, happiness and fortune in the upcoming year.

Now for my weekly blog:

I recently found myself eating more than I am used to. Once I became aware of this, I sat down to ask myself a couple questions: 1. What are some possible explanations for this? 2. Do I want this behaviour to continue? Looking at question 1: I had been exercising and lifting more weight, perhaps my body needed more calories. Maybe my body is stressed and I am eating to compensate. I could also be eating in the place of feeling my emotions. Other possibilities included extra Halloween candy and eating out too much. After this examination, I decided more awareness is in order.I started a 1 week experiment with my focus on listening to my hunger. I wanted to know what my hunger is really telling me. I started by putting off my breakfast time. I hypothesized that this would allow me to distinguish between true hunger versus eating out of habit. My stomach started to feel like it needed to eat around the same time in the morning that I usually eat everyday. However, when I drank water and waited another 5 mins, that feeling passed. Next, we had a rush of people come into the office at once and things got a little stressful. Even though it was the morning, I found myself craving the chocolate in my drawer….hmmm, another clue. I drank more water and went back to work. By mid morning, my stomach started to make noises and I knew what actual hunger felt like for me. When I listened to this cue I noticed that I ate slower and was full sooner than usual. I compared this with my stress eating where I would eat chocolate bars and chips and they are eaten so quickly that I don’t even realise until the entire pack is done.Other awarenesses I noticed during the week were:

eating slowly and away from the computer gets me fuller faster

eating slower allows me to enjoy the bite of each food

when I ate food that was good for my body, I was more awake throughout the day and my focus increased

when I ate food that was not suitable for me, I felt sleepy within 30 minutes of eating and could get grumpy. I also did not stay as full when I ate bad food.

In all of this, I was reminded what a pleasure it is to eat food. With this experiment, I can now understand what my body needs and how to properly nourish myself. Give this a try and let your body guide you.

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What Our Clients Are Saying

"I barely have the words to thank you for the pos­i­tive changes you have facil­i­tated in my phys­i­cal health and well being. When I started, I was stressed and expe­ri­enc­ing ower back pain and mobil­ity issues. In the past three months I have expe­ri­enced com­plete relax­ation at your warm and skilled hands and learned to carry this feel­ing through to my day to day life. You have taken me from a life­long habit of worry and anx­i­ety to a far more bal­anced place of calm and under­stand­ing. You are truly a gift, Dr. Amanda. Thanks so much for your care and your gift of heal­ing."